I've always wanted to be a Marine. The rigidity, the honor, the intensity of the missions. It always seemed so attractive. On my eighteenth birthday, I enlisted. It was, I think, the happiest day of my life.
That day was two years ago, February 19, 1943. I didn't know what I was getting into. Sometimes I regret it, but then I remember all the things that I had looked for in the Marines, all the friends I'd made, the grim satisfaction of an exploding grenade behind enemy lines. Most of my friends were gone now, lost on the sulfur floor of Iwo Jima. My buddy Manchester said that it was an "ugly smelly glob of cold lava squatting in a surly ocean" (Danzer 583). I'd laughed when he said it, but now I know. It was like Hell in the Pacific.
We arrived on the island with 71,000 Marines and captured Mt. Suribachi in 4 days (Danzer 582). We had this in the bag, we thought, but we were wrong. For four long weeks, the battle dragged on and on and on. I was one of the few that hadn't gotten hurt. I was not a casualty among the 17,000 (Redding 1). But the battle was taking a toll on me anyway. I was one of the "walking wounded" as we had aptly named ourselves in the later days of the battle (Redding1).
After the first day we had lost over 500 soldiers (Redding 1). Yet we continued to fight the Japanese, those cunning soldiers who had built trenches and pits from which they could attack us and kill us without our even realizing that we were meeting death (Redding 1).
Our generals and Majors didn't care that we were dying. They wanted Iwo Jima, that miserable wasteland, for an emergency landing pad for our planes that needed supplies after bombing Japan; they also wanted the element of surprise in attacking the island (Redding 2). For them it was worth the loss of our men now to kill more of their men later. But Japan wouldn't give it up. What were we supposed to do?
We did all we could to bomb the hell out of the Japanese. And it worked, unfortunately. At the beginning, there were 20,700 Japanese troops. And then there were 200 soldiers. We had won. Or had we?
I flew home two months after Iwo Jima, My mother ran across the yard and into my arms barely after I got out of the car. I could see my father standing at the door, smiling. I smiled, too, but I still ached thinking of all the young men, just like I was, who were fighting, literally, for their lives.
The day before I left to go back to the States, what was left of my squadron received news of a major battle at Okinawa. It was April of 1945 and this was supposed to be the last major battle. We would soon be out of Japan, out of the East, out of this war. It was just like Iwo Jima. The U.S. wanted Okinawa to stage raids against the Japanese mainland ("Battle" 1). But it was different. There were real people living on this island, not cunning cold-hearted soldiers who planted bombs and traps to capture our men.
I went to sleep at night thinking of the women and children on the island who were killed everyday at the hands of U.S. and Japanese arms.
Not that Americans didn't die. In the first weeks alone, Japanese troops unleashed 1,900 kamikaze attacks and killed 5,000 of our men at sea (Danzer 583). These Japanese were no different from the men at Iwo Jima. They built trenches and tunnels, slowing any American progress towards capturing the island to only a few yards every so often ("Battle" 2). They were helping, us, too, though. They were so bloodthirsty that they threw flamethrowers and satchel charges blindly, killing themselves and other Japanese alongside our troops. It had blown into an all-out war: fight and die for your country or don't live at all.
I read in newspapers that Japan was slowly losing territory and was planning to surrender Okinawa to the U.S. The Chicago Times said that two generals had killed themselves in the midst of battle to prevent the shame of surrender (Danzer 583). I wish America would have the courage to surrender. I had known so many good men, had had so much pride in the Marines.
As a 19 year old kid, I shouldn't be feeling like an 80 year-old man, feeling my joints crack with the despair of my lost buddies, my head ache from tensing my jaw at every newspaper headline.
The Chicago Times soon said that we had won the war, but it was never over. Not for me.
Works Cited
"Battle of Okinawa." American History. 2008. ABC-CLIO. Hunterdon Central Regional High School. 21 Oct. 2008.
Daniel J. Redding. "Iwo Jima Revisited 60 Years Later." Marine Corps News. Feb. 2005. SIRS. Hunterdon Central Regional High School. 21 Sep. 2008.
Danzer, Gerald, et al. The Americans. Evanston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
I've always wanted to be a Marine. The rigidity, the honor, the intensity of the missions. It always seemed so attractive. On my eighteenth birthday, I enlisted. It was, I think, the happiest day of my life.
That day was two years ago, February 19, 1943. I didn't know what I was getting into. Sometimes I regret it, but then I remember all the things that I had looked for in the Marines, all the friends I'd made, the grim satisfaction of an exploding grenade behind enemy lines. Most of my friends were gone now, lost on the sulfur floor of Iwo Jima. My buddy Manchester said that it was an "ugly smelly glob of cold lava squatting in a surly ocean" (Danzer 583). I'd laughed when he said it, but now I know. It was like Hell in the Pacific.
We arrived on the island with 71,000 Marines and captured Mt. Suribachi in 4 days (Danzer 582). We had this in the bag, we thought, but we were wrong. For four long weeks, the battle dragged on and on and on. I was one of the few that hadn't gotten hurt. I was not a casualty among the 17,000 (Redding 1). But the battle was taking a toll on me anyway. I was one of the "walking wounded" as we had aptly named ourselves in the later days of the battle (Redding1).
After the first day we had lost over 500 soldiers (Redding 1). Yet we continued to fight the Japanese, those cunning soldiers who had built trenches and pits from which they could attack us and kill us without our even realizing that we were meeting death (Redding 1).
Our generals and Majors didn't care that we were dying. They wanted Iwo Jima, that miserable wasteland, for an emergency landing pad for our planes that needed supplies after bombing Japan; they also wanted the element of surprise in attacking the island (Redding 2). For them it was worth the loss of our men now to kill more of their men later. But Japan wouldn't give it up. What were we supposed to do?
We did all we could to bomb the hell out of the Japanese. And it worked, unfortunately. At the beginning, there were 20,700 Japanese troops. And then there were 200 soldiers. We had won. Or had we?
I flew home two months after Iwo Jima, My mother ran across the yard and into my arms barely after I got out of the car. I could see my father standing at the door, smiling. I smiled, too, but I still ached thinking of all the young men, just like I was, who were fighting, literally, for their lives.
The day before I left to go back to the States, what was left of my squadron received news of a major battle at Okinawa. It was April of 1945 and this was supposed to be the last major battle. We would soon be out of Japan, out of the East, out of this war. It was just like Iwo Jima. The U.S. wanted Okinawa to stage raids against the Japanese mainland ("Battle" 1). But it was different. There were real people living on this island, not cunning cold-hearted soldiers who planted bombs and traps to capture our men.
I went to sleep at night thinking of the women and children on the island who were killed everyday at the hands of U.S. and Japanese arms.
Not that Americans didn't die. In the first weeks alone, Japanese troops unleashed 1,900 kamikaze attacks and killed 5,000 of our men at sea (Danzer 583). These Japanese were no different from the men at Iwo Jima. They built trenches and tunnels, slowing any American progress towards capturing the island to only a few yards every so often ("Battle" 2). They were helping, us, too, though. They were so bloodthirsty that they threw flamethrowers and satchel charges blindly, killing themselves and other Japanese alongside our troops. It had blown into an all-out war: fight and die for your country or don't live at all.
I read in newspapers that Japan was slowly losing territory and was planning to surrender Okinawa to the U.S. The Chicago Times said that two generals had killed themselves in the midst of battle to prevent the shame of surrender (Danzer 583). I wish America would have the courage to surrender. I had known so many good men, had had so much pride in the Marines.
As a 19 year old kid, I shouldn't be feeling like an 80 year-old man, feeling my joints crack with the despair of my lost buddies, my head ache from tensing my jaw at every newspaper headline.
The Chicago Times soon said that we had won the war, but it was never over. Not for me.
Works Cited
"Battle of Okinawa." American History. 2008. ABC-CLIO. Hunterdon Central Regional High School. 21 Oct. 2008.
Daniel J. Redding. "Iwo Jima Revisited 60 Years Later." Marine Corps News. Feb. 2005. SIRS. Hunterdon Central Regional High School. 21 Sep. 2008.
Danzer, Gerald, et al. The Americans. Evanston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
http://www.grolier.com/wwii/photos/USWW0035.JPEG
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/43/71343-004-339D054B.jpg
http://www.sligocameraclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/Iwo%20Jima.jpg